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San Diego, Tx #2902616 01/05/12 10:04 PM
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chevydude Offline OP
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Hello everyone,
i am fairly new to hunting , but have been visiting this website for a long time. My dad , bro and I have access to hunting a small ranch in san diego, tx. We have been out there about four or five times this season and have yet to see any deer. Tracks are abundant with hogs, bobcats, some deer.
i read all these posts about you guys that see plenty of action where yall hunt. lots of you pass on what you see to wait on what you want. meanwhile, i cant wait for the time i get to even see anything. this area seems to get talked bad about regarding the deer pop. can someone explain to me why its bad? we have feeders and game cams and see a doe or two here and there but no mass amount of deer.


any feedback, tips etc is appreciated.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: chevydude] #2902617 01/05/12 10:05 PM
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Btw, we dont pay to hunt there. family of ours is nice enough to let us use their property.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: chevydude] #2902665 01/05/12 10:17 PM
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Used to have 350 acres in San Diego we had alot of deer on our place. One thing that we noticed is the that if you hunt there on a full moon you are not going to see much.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: chevydude] #2902672 01/05/12 10:19 PM
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Every place is different, bit it will also likely change. I'm not familiar at all with your area, so I can't speak to it specifically.

That being said, be patient and keep at it. There are deer in your area, so you just need to attract them to your land. The best way to do that is to make your property more appealing than your neighbors.

10 years ago I didn't see many deer on my place, much less bucks. Today, I could drive out to my place and at least find some does within an hour or so. Some of the things I did:

1. Started feeding year round. Corn mostly, but put out minerals as well.
2. Limited my harvest (a leasor had shot everything that moved for a few years hurting the herd. I'll never lease it out again)
3. Build food plots.
4. Set some areas as being completely wild. Fenced out the cattle and actually moved off the cattle completely for different parts of the year.
5. Make sure you have water. I'm lucky in this regard and it's likely my lands best asset.

Ten years later, I still have issues, but seeing deer isn't one of them. In fact, at this point I've likely got too many deer, particularly does, and am taking some buddies out next week telling them to each fill all their doe tags.

Good luck. Put in the time and the effort and you'll appreciate the reward that much more.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: KennyLee] #2902709 01/05/12 10:37 PM
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kenny , thanks for the great tips.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: KennyLee] #2902714 01/05/12 10:38 PM
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kenny , thanks for the great tips.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: chevydude] #2902836 01/05/12 11:20 PM
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That area is heavily poached. One of the worst areas in the state for poaching. Much of it is subsistence poaching that goes on year round.

There are pockets on larger ranches that have successfully fought the poaching. The other issue is that there are a lot of smaller tracts with heavy hunting pressure and land fragmentation.

Your best bet to attract deer will be to feed corn year round. Water will also be a factor. If you don't have a water source on the property you would be well served to get one.

Best of luck.



Mike
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Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: LandPirate] #2903115 01/06/12 12:47 AM
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Originally Posted By: LandPirate
That area is heavily poached. One of the worst areas in the state for poaching. Much of it is subsistence poaching that goes on year round.

There are pockets on larger ranches that have successfully fought the poaching. The other issue is that there are a lot of smaller tracts with heavy hunting pressure and land fragmentation.

Your best bet to attract deer will be to feed corn year round. Water will also be a factor. If you don't have a water source on the property you would be well served to get one.

Best of luck.


BINGO! That is almost exactly what I was gonna tell him about the poachers. Thanks.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: deerfeeder] #2903132 01/06/12 12:51 AM
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It's already been mentioned, poachers are a huge problem out there!





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Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: stxhunter] #2903288 01/06/12 01:40 AM
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Anyone have a link to where we can see the latest poaching reports for the area? Or anybody spoke to any of the game wardens in the area?


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: stxhunter] #2903292 01/06/12 01:42 AM
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I hunt near San Diego as well. Yes, the biggest problems are poachers & neighbors that shoot everything they see. A lot of these poachers hunt day & night, year round & many are illegals. No I'm not just saying that, I've met a lot of them over the years. It's tuff especially on a small place, bigger ranches are a different story. Best thing to do is feed year round, make sure you have a water source, & try to leave your heaviest cover for bedding areas. Good Luck!


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: skinnerback] #2903421 01/06/12 02:23 AM
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I hunt on the north side of San Diego, we have had 8 and 10 pointers show up on the game cameras but only at night. They are pretty smart, we have only shot 2 spikes so far. We will be there this weekend and next to see if any bucks come out with the does.

We hang out at Lucazie's all the time.



Joel
Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: san diego hunter] #2903436 01/06/12 02:25 AM
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We used to have to drive in and walk everywhere if we drove the truck around we wouldnt see a deer all weekend.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: nado2036] #2903493 01/06/12 02:44 AM
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That is so true, we do the same thing.



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Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: san diego hunter] #2903523 01/06/12 02:52 AM
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There are a ton of deer all over that area but there are very skiddish. We never would go with a full moon and you dont drive on your property. We would just throw corn out as we walked in and the corn never seemed to stop them long they were always moving. We put feeders up but the deer there only came at night I never saw anything worth shooting under the feeder in the day.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: nado2036] #2903622 01/06/12 03:12 AM
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I bet your neighbors are shooting everything that moves. We had that problem and never saw much. Brother and I finally got tired of it and high fenced our place. New we have native deer everywhere and we actually watch them live to be 8 years old sometimes.



HLo
Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: HLo] #2903660 01/06/12 03:23 AM
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Im sure it was a family place and we drove up unannounced one night to see a distant cousin strapping lights to the top of his suburban. We hunted the next morning and the Sendera's looked like the yellow brick road. We tried to buy everyone out and just got tired of all the BS and sold our portion. Sucks loved that place and really havent hunted that much since.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: nado2036] #2903782 01/06/12 03:53 AM
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San Diego, Concepcion, Benavides, that there is pretty much outlaw country. On a number of levels.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: deerfeeder] #2903893 01/06/12 04:21 AM
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Oh forgot to say also that our land manager blew up his trailer cooking meth. That was an interesting phone call for my grandpa. Burnt up most of the property.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: nado2036] #2903981 01/06/12 04:45 AM
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thanks for the info guys. i'm assuming the GW's are aware of the poaching in this area??????


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: chevydude] #2904133 01/06/12 05:52 AM
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They used to monitor by planes but that was 15 years ago. Are the Coyotes bad on your place? We would kill 10-15 a weekend and we had 2 mountain lions.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: nado2036] #2904156 01/06/12 06:24 AM
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We hunt near Realitos. The area has always been poached. Get to know your game warden and let him know what you're about.
San Diego also has a lot of land in ag use and doesn't have as much cover as some of the surround areas. There are still plenty of deer and hogs in the area though.


Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: chevydude] #2904522 01/06/12 02:36 PM
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Chevydude, Everyone is family and everyone owes everyone favors in most S.Texas counties.


Last edited by Kiko-G; 01/06/12 02:37 PM.
Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: Kiko-G] #2904870 01/06/12 04:19 PM
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Originally Posted By: Kiko-G
Chevydude, Everyone is family and everyone owes everyone favors in most S.Texas counties.


^^^ this

If it is family and they are just letting you hunt, chances are they are letting others hunt as well. That is pretty much how any deal like that I have heard about works. The area is known for poaching, our state biologist and game warden both told us this.



It's hell eatin em live
Re: San Diego, Tx [Re: redchevy] #2905087 01/06/12 05:31 PM
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Now this is just my opinion.... But I would be ashamed to be a GW and admit that this or ANY area is known for poaching or any other unethical hunting behavior. To me that would mean that Tpwd and GW's are not doing their jobs. Just my two cents, don't flame me for it. : )

I also understand that it's impossible to micromanage all parts of hunting land, but when an entire area is "known" for poaching you would think more effort would be put forth to the best of their abilities.

Or is it much more difficult than one would think???


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